I was genuinely surprised to learn that Riven was a proper sequel to Myst. Actually, I wasn’t just surprised that Myst had not only multiple sequels but a whole universe of lore including books and I think there was talk about a TV or film adaptation? The first time I had ever seen Myst was long ago at my local Radioshack—ask your parents. It was on one of the many demo PCs they had, and I remember trying it only to immediately get lost in the deep world of puzzles.
I was a small, simple child back then so it was only natural I wouldn’t have any chance at progressing through Myst and as such, I kind of put the game in the back of my mind. As I grew, I knew it was a big deal, but I had never gotten around to experiencing it for myself—not properly anyway. I vaguely remember when a full from-the-ground-up remake of Myst was released back in 2021, because not only was I genuinely surprised by the notion, but I welcomed a second chance to go back and experience the game in an updated way.
But due to my long-mentioned lack of a capable gaming PC, I slept on it and it faded into the…mist of my brain. Luckily, the sequel to Myst is also now getting a from-the-ground-up remake set to release on June 25th, 2024. CGM was fortunate to get a first look at the updated Riven and it’s incredible to see how far a little modernization goes.
Riven was an interesting game to both see and experience as Cyan Worlds not only gave as a brief demo of the game, highlighting some of the features, but also allowed us to play through roughly the first 30 minutes of the game. But even from a design standpoint, the idea that Riven would be bigger and better than Myst, as Co-Founder and CEO of Cyan Worlds Rand Miller explained, “Riven had the resources that Myst provided to really tell a story,” going on to say they wanted Riven to be The Lord of the Rings to Myst’s The Hobbit.
But it’s not so obtrusive that players unfamiliar with the greater Myst franchise will be left confused which was one of my worries as someone who didn’t play Myst. Riven begins with a vague yet grand sense of something big at play and with the legacy it has behind it, players might feel intimate to jump right in, but as Miller said, “The way we look at this philosophically is, it doesn’t matter to us what order you play in.”
“In fact, one of the things Miller said he loved about the updated Riven was how many moments look like they could be stills from the original game.”
Miller added, “In some ways, we look at it almost like the Star Wars movies where you start at Episode Four and it’s kind of cool if you do it right? You feel like you’re getting into the middle of it and when you go back and learn the pre-story, it’s just as satisfying as doing the pre-story first.”
But it’s the gameplay that has received the biggest improvement, much like its updated predecessor. Similar to Myst, the original Riven played over a collection of still images, presenting a vast world, but one that always felt somewhat stilted and restrictive. The shackles have come completely off the updated Riven, allowing not only greater player freedom but a lot more visual detail and readability.
In fact, one of the things Miller said he loved about the updated Riven was how many moments look like they could be stills from the original game. It speaks to the incredible amount of care that the team has put into preserving the look of the original—utilizing Unreal Engine 5 to make every moment look like a still photo crafted for that moment.
But since so much of the original world of Riven was still images it seems the team at Cyan Worlds had to learn a lot from the updated Myst in order to rebuild the world of Riven in a way that “fills in a lot of gaps” as Miller said. However, one of the things that hasn’t really changed, quite intentionally, was the gameplay.
The world of intricate puzzles that defines Riven remains intact, but is now somewhat more approachable and understandable since everything is happening in real-time and the world is much more fleshed out and open.
“Our goal is that…once you understand the solution to a puzzle…you blame yourself for not finding the answer and not us.”
As Miller said during the preview, so much of the world and its storytelling is environmental in nature. Giving players so much more freedom allows them to see more and figure out some solutions to puzzles a bit more easily.
This was something I noticed during my time playing Riven. There’s one important room in particular that would rotate with the push of a button. Players need to find a back entrance—which is barred by another bit of environmental puzzle-solving, but we’ll get into that shortly—to find a second way in and figure out the puzzle.
But it was the freedom not only to be able to scope out the rooms through little portholes in the walls but also the ability to move around while the room was spinning—something that would’ve locked the player in a cutscene in the original Riven—that made the puzzle so much more efficient to work out. These are just some of the small ways the updated Riven brings the game into the modern day, making it more streamlined without removing the challenge.
And the team definitely didn’t want to remove the challenge. Something that was touched on in regards to the aforementioned door was how certain puzzles will have little indicators to help marginally clue the player into the solution. One thing I was curious about was to what degree the updated Riven would have more accessibility options for players—making the clues a bit more obvious, or assisting players who might not be as good at solving puzzles as others.
Miller was frank, but kind, in his response, saying, “We shy away from the helper kind of aspect and we’re more, I think, inclined to see problems more as integral to the game itself.” He continued, “Like if somebody has trouble finding things, we want to make sure we point it out, but our goal is that, and don’t take this the wrong way, once you understand the solution to a puzzle and you go back and look at it again, we want you to blame yourself for not finding the answer and not blame us.”
I’ve often said in my reviews of puzzle games that a good puzzle game is one that gives you all the necessary information, and the challenge comes from your ability to solve it. And it seems like Cyan Worlds has gone a long way to making sure that’s the case. Despite Riven being a literal world of puzzles, Miller did say they’ve done a better job in this update making sure certain levers or switches better reflect the things they interact with—so even if they’re rooms away from each other, you’ll still have an idea of what they do.
In almost every way, the updated Riven is shaping up to be as good, if not better than the updated version of its predecessor—something that is just as true now as it was back in 1997. Cyan Worlds has taken a great amount of care to make Riven feel as grand and expansive as its original predecessor, and I have little doubt this will hook a whole new generation of puzzle-solving players.
